Of Mammoths, Mayhem, and Lobstermen
by neoxphile
Summary: a Christmas in July kind of story. Haven/Heart of Dixie/X-Files/Primeval. Audrey/Duke/Nathan romance, Zoe/Wade romance, Mulder/Scully romance, Abby/Connor romance
1. Four Meanwhiles

Title: Of Mammoths, Mayhem, and Lobstermen  
Author: Neoxphile

Summary: a Christmas in July kind of story. Haven/Heart of Dixie/X-Files/Primeval. Audrey/Duke/Nathan, Zoe/Wade, Mulder/Scully, Abby/Connor

* * *

Haven, Maine  
December 17th

A raw wind picked at Brett McKinley's rain slicker as he sat in a row boat that had seen better days. Most people thought that he was insane to go fishing at that time year, and not be snuggly ensconced in an ice hut while he did so, but Brett was getting on in years, and he no longer felt the need to kowtow to popular opinion. If he did, he wouldn't have tried to keep streaking a thing well into the nineties.

Most importantly, at least to him at the moment, he had a firm tug on his line. He wasn't sure what sort of fish had taken the bait, but he was certain it was quite large. In fact, it pulled at him in a way that he hadn't experienced since that one time his brother-in-law invited him to Florida to try to fish for marlin. That had led to Stevie needing to get seventeen stitches, and it was no longer a welcome story around the Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner table.

"Ah, come on," Brett mumbled to himself when it began to feel like his shoulder was going to be pulled out of the socket. He was so intent on what was that the other end of his line that he didn't look up until something dazzled in the corner of his eye.

When Brett finally did look up, it was to be instantly confused. Not 300 yards from him he saw something that he had never laid eyes on before. His first immediate assumption was that it was ice, because it was crystalline and sparkling the way ice does on a sunny day, but then he realized that it moved with the odd pulsing radiance.

He had a couple of moments to study it, but not long enough. Before he had come up with an alternate theory on what the strange thing might be - though he had been leaning towards an art installation by those weird kids at the University of Maine - before something large lunged through the center of the mass.

Brett screamed briefly, and his fishing pole clattered to the bottom of the rowboat. A few red spots were all that remained inside the rowboat other than the fishing pole.

* * *

En route to New York

At the beginning of the summer Zoe told Wade that she was going to spend a while in New York, pursuing medicine there for a few months instead of at her practice with Brick Breeland in Bluebell. He had accepted that, mostly because he felt so guilty still for having had the one night stand that pushed her away. He tried to explain that he had felt the need to sabotage the one good thing that ever happened to him, because he worried that he was going to screw it up accidentally if he didn't do it on purpose. And she had nodded, and told him that she needed time. That's when she said she was leaving.

Unfortunately, it turned out that she required quite a bit more time than he ever bargained for. Lavon warned him in September not to go running after her. And he listened then. And he listened in October. And even on Planksgiving day. But now it was almost Christmas, and he wasn't going to stand for Zoe Hart avoiding him any longer. Lemon told him that he was a moron and a narcissist to believe that she was still in New York because of him, but he couldn't shake the feeling that it was all his fault. Maybe because he didn't want to believe that she might have found something better in New York City than what she had left behind in Bluebell, Alabama.

Worst come to worst and least he could tell himself that Wade Kinsella wasn't the sort of man to just passively let the right one get away. It was going to take a lot of effort to get her to forgive him, but he thought it might be possible.

Or, at least he hoped so.

* * *

London, England

Things were bustling inside the Arc, but they usually did. Very few people paid attention to the team that studied anomalies. It wasn't their jobs to worry about those things, so for the most part they didn't.

"Looks like we've got another one," Connor Temple said, looking over his shoulder to his girlfriend Abby Maitland. It actually was his job to worry about anomalies, and he was quite concerned about the one on that had just popped up.

She barely looked up from what she was doing with Rex, everyone's favorite flying lizard. "Hmm?" she murmured, finally looking over to where he was surrounded by computer screens. In the center of one of them a red circle flashed. She walked over to him, curious. Pointing at the map she asked "where's that?" It didn't look like anywhere she was familiar with.

"It's in America," Connor declared with a roll of his eyes.

Abby squinted at the screen. "Where in America?"

"Maine. It's part of that section of the country they referred to as New England. Funny, isn't it? Those pilgrims wanted to leave England so badly, but then they named the place New England, the named most of the towns after places here."

She contemplated the screen a little longer, wishing for once that she had paid half as much attention in geography classes as she had her zoology courses. "Oh! That's Canada right?" she asked, pointing a finger a few inches above the pulsing red dot.

"Yes."

"That's odd, they don't get many anomalies in the States."

"Guess they lucked out this time," Connor said drolly. "And them without team to deal with that yet." He was referring to the whispered plans to install Arc in North America, but the powers that be had been saying that even before he and Abby had been accidentally trapped in the Cretaceous.

Suddenly Abby looked excited. "Connor, haven't you ever wanted to go to the states and not have to pay for it?" She thumped him on the shoulder. "Maybe this is our chance."

Connor gave her a long look. "Okay. But you have to be the one to tell Lester where this anomaly is."

Abby frowned. "It's not like he's going to say no. We can't just have prehistoric creatures roaming around this Maine."

"They don't have to be prehistoric. They could be from the future," Connor corrected automatically, and pedantically.

"Either way," she insisted.

"Right. So you're going to go tell Lester now, aren't you?" he asked hopefully.

This was met only with a sigh and a resigned look.

* * *

Virginia  
Unremarkable House

Mulder open the front door to the unmistakable sound of his lover throwing up in the bathroom. Another man might be concerned about morning sickness or a hangover, but his first thought was a horrible flashback to when she had suffered cancer.

Hoping that he was just being ridiculous, he hurried the rest of the way into the house without bothering to knock the snow from his boots first. This meant he left a trail of wet, muddy footprints all the way through the living room and down the hallway.

As he expected, she was hugging the bowl. "You okay?" he asked, concerned when he saw how pale she was. In addition to being worried, he also began to feel guilty. Last night had been his turn to cook. Had he done something wrong when he cooked their pork roast? Surely that was more likely than her having started chemo again on the sly.

"No," she said, voice rough as she wiped a hand across the back of her mouth.

He said nothing as she went to the sink, filled a small paper cup with water, and rinsed out her mouth. Once she no longer had a mouthful of barf, he decided that it was okay to continue their conversation. "What's wrong?"

Scully didn't say anything. Instead, she led him to the computer screen in his home office. He was mildly surprised to see that she had been surfing the Internet while he had been out shopping at Home Depot: she didn't usually use the computer without his okay.

All of that was immediately forgotten when he noticed that she was on a news site. "Read it." She gave him a grim look, so he did what he was bid.

At first he didn't understand her interest in the article from earlier in the day, considering that it was about a tragic house fire that took place up in New England, leaving two adults dead and a child orphaned. But then he realized that there was a picture of the dead couple with their young son. He looked at the boy, studying the child's features.

"William?" he asked, numb.

"You think so too," she said in the same emotion-roughened voice.

"But…"

She jabbed her finger at one paragraph in particular. "The couple who took William lived out West. The agency told me that much. And this couple? They just relocated from Wyoming. The boy is the exact same age as William."

"And he looks like you," Mulder blurted out before he thought better of it.

"We can be on a flight to Manchester, New Hampshire in three hours," Scully informed him. "That's as close as we can get by plane. Then it's a couple hours by car. At least according to MapQuest."

Mulder looked at her, wondering if it was saying to chase after the son they hadn't seen since he was a baby. "Then I guess we'd better pack our bags."

* * *

a/n: Planksgiving is not a typo. Google it, people.


	2. Longing For a Day Without Pants

Haven, Maine  
December 19th

If there was one thing that Duke Crocker wanted to do with his day, it was to spend it not wearing any pants while he lounged on the old ship he called his home. This was actually a real possibility for the course of his day. Duke's bar was in good hands now that he'd decided to keep on the manager Nathan had found to run the place in his absence - if a person being trapped in a ominously magical barn with a nasty perchance for winking out of existence could be properly called "an absence"- he found himself eager to indulge in the simpler things in life, like forgetting your worries to the extent of not bothering to get dressed for a whole day.

He was pretty sure that Audrey's therapist, Claire, would have thought he was in denial about being depressed, or worse, but she'd been murdered by a shape-shifting horror before the barn sucked them up so he didn't have to hear about it.

And what did he have to be depressed about, anyway? The barn had only kept them hostage a few weeks, not the 27 years everyone had worried about back when they'd assumed it'd only be taking Audrey, so it wasn't as though they'd returned only to literally find that life had passed them by. At least it had been Audrey he'd been trapped with all that time.

If someone had told him five years ago that a modern day pirate like him would someday not have been unhappy trapped anywhere with a cop, even an attractive blonde one, he would've laughed in the teller's face. And if the person had gone on to tell him that his being okay with it would be **after** he discovered his family's legacy was to end their troubles by murdering the afflicted, he would've hauled them to the e.r. on the assumption that the person was dangerously high or suffering alcohol poisoning. But that's how it turned out.

There could even be said to be an upside to the ordeal: their time alone led to her allowing herself to acknowledge, and act upon, her attraction to him too. So he'd finally gotten what he wanted. Sort of.

Of course, they weren't marooned long enough for her to forget that she cared deeply for Nathan too, though.

A lot of women dated two men at once, right?

It wasn't so bad. At least that's what he told himself on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. (it was a Thursday).

Since it wasn't a day he could allow himself to pretend that Audrey's heart was his alone, and it was eight in the morning besides, he didn't really expect for anyone to noisily board his boat when they did.

_Maybe it's a Mormon_, he thought as he stood and stretched before running a hand through his still longish raven hair, _pretty bold of them to jump onto the deck, but they're getting braver lately_. His was probably a choice soul to try to stage of rescue of, his past being what it was, after all.

Duke glanced at his dresser, thinking of putting on the pants he'd accidentally shut in one of the drawers, before he went up deck but decided against it: if it was a religious pest, maybe a lack of pants would help to keep the visit short.

He wasn't all the way out of his quarters before he realized his visitors were the blonde he'd come to love, and Nathan. "What?" he asked flatly. If Nathan was in tow, Audrey hadn't dropped by for cuddles.

"Good morning to you too," she said just as sourly.

Giving Nathan a sardonic look, he just asked, "To what do I owe the displeasure of your company at this time of day?"

"Told you he'd be grumpy," Nathan said to her, ignoring him.

Or at least he ignored him until Duke retorted, "Come on, Nate. It's not like I believe you dropped by because you finally talked Audrey into a thre-"

It surprised no one, least of all Duke, that he got punched before finishing the thought.

He shrugged. It wasn't as though he was really eager to see Nathan starkers for a second time in their lives - the first had been after an unfortunate incident when Nathan's father had busted them skinny dipping with girls when they were still young and sort of friends.

Sighing, he gave the pair expectant looks. No doubt they'd decided to drop by and force him to lend assistance while they dealt with someone who has some sort of crazy supernatural power that they couldn't control. He hoped it be something simple, like someone accidentally manifesting puppies, rather than accidentally liquefying people's bones with their minds. Neither of those things had happened yet, and he thought it the latter was unfortunately slightly more likely.

Glaring at him while he rubbed the sore spot on his chest, Audrey asked, "Have you ever spent much time around elephants?"

"Do you have to ask something like that in front of him?" Duke pitched his voice low. "That's sort of a personal question, you know."

"I don't even want to know what you mean by that," Nathan said, obviously disgusted.

"I told you he has no imagination, Audrey. You're going to be so bored dating him too."

"Bite me." Duke ducked away when Nathan looked ready to hit him again.

"Elephants," Audrey said again like she was speaking to slow children. "The kind with gray skin and trunks. Not whatever the hell you meant."

He hadn't really meant anything, but had just been unable to resist trying to get Nathan's goat by implying he was provincial in comparison. Nathan's father had done a much better job guilting Nathan into staying in Maine than Duke's had, though he had honored his father's wishes that he come back if troubled people started appearing in town and upping the body count again. Duke had managed to travel the world before returning to take up his obligation, and Nathan hadn't.

"Ok, yes. I spent some time around elephants in my travels." He actually had a pretty good story about elephants and the one time he'd gone on a safari, but neither of Haven's finest looked like they were in the mood for it.

"Told you." Audrey punched Nathan, making him wince, and reminding Duke that Nathan could feel her touch. Hers alone. Since their escape from the barn, he'd spent a lot of time trying to think of a way to temporarily kill Nathan so he could take his trouble away for good. Maybe if Nathan wasn't troubled and could feel everyone, he'd realize he and Audrey had no chemistry, and she wasn't his destiny.

Of course, he could permanently kill him and eliminate him as competition that way too, but Audrey would be mad, mope, and still manage to expect him to redouble his efforts to be helpful to the town. No, it was better to let Mr. Law and Order live than be unwillingly deputized.

"What are you thinking about?" Audrey asked suspiciously.

"I'm wondering why you and Nathan discussed my experience with elephants," he improvised knowing that being honest about his fantasies about killing her other boyfriend wouldn't end well for him.

"Show him," Nathan demanded.

Audrey obligingly pulled out her phone, but Duke held up a hand. "You really didn't need to come out here to show me a YouTube video. I would've made time tomorrow night," he added to needle Nathan.

"It's not YouTube," the other man grumbled. "Watch."

Duke took the phone with a sigh and watched. The setting was vaguely familiar and he wondered if it was some patch of woods he'd drank in during his largely misspent youth. No matter where it was, it currently had a large angry animal rampaging in it. It tore two small trees out of the ground as he watched.

Once the video ended, he handed the phone back. "Fascinating. This has what to do with me?" he asked, politely, he thought.

"Put some pants on," Nathan said, his disgusted look back.

"Uh uh. I'm happy without them."

"You'll freeze your butt off," Audrey told him. "And I feel that would be... unfortunate," she added, tone targeted to appeal to his baser nature.

He wasn't falling for that. "It _is_ one of my better features, but it will stay toasty, right here. I'm not in the mood to go tripping into the woods."

"Duke."

"No. Isn't this a job for animal control, anyway?"

"Oh yes, Maine animal control has loads of elephant experience," Nathan said snidely.

"More than me!" he automatically protested. "Or call that zoo down in York," he said after a beat. It'd been a while since he'd been there, but if they had a tiger, what were the odds that they didn't have an elephant sometime too?

"Did. They said it's not theirs and not their problem." Nathan picked up the pants and shook them menacingly. Duke backed away, shaking his head.

"Duke, please," Audrey said, giving him a look he could rarely resist.

"Fine," he growled, yanking the jeans out of Nathan's hands. Looking over at him, he said, "Under one condition. You have to promise to bleed on me if this thing ends up goring you with its tusks."

Nathan simply nodded.


End file.
